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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29080575">Gray's Stanuary Collection 2021</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/3HobbitsInATrenchcoat/pseuds/3HobbitsInATrenchcoat'>3HobbitsInATrenchcoat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gravity Falls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AMV, Boxing, Embedded Video, Gen, Guilt, Homelessness, Mullet Stan Pines, Stangst, Stanuary, Stanuary 2021, Young Stan Pines, stan pines is a theater kid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:47:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29080575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/3HobbitsInATrenchcoat/pseuds/3HobbitsInATrenchcoat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of the four works I created for Stanuary 2021. 3 short fics and one AMV crossposted from tumblr.</p><p>Week 1 - Charm<br/>Week 2 - Sacrifice<br/>Week 3 - Crime<br/>Week 4 - Future</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Stanuary</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Charm: Rabbits Foot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s the first thing he successfully pickpockets.</p><p>Down on his luck, down to his last dollar, Stan Pines slipped his hand into a stranger’s overcoat pocket and pulled out a roll of small bills tied with twine and attached to… something. He didn’t even realize what he’d got until he was well around the corner and down another street, hand clapped over his mouth as he nearly laughed himself silly at the sight of the fuzzy rabbit’s foot dangling from his fingers.</p><p>“Not so lucky for your previous owner, were you buddy?” he asked into the chill night, deftly tossing the fuzzy charm into the air and snatching it again. “Did he not care for you right? Just tied you to his money and hoped you’d work?”</p><p>The charm, being a bit of fur and bone and incapable of human speech, predictably said nothing. Stan chuckled and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket, patting it fondly.</p><p>“Well, you brought me some luck tonight, maybe things have turned around.”</p><p>-------</p><p>Things did not turn around. They didn’t get any worse… but they didn’t really get any better.</p><p>Stan kept the little charm in his pocket for years. On the worst nights, the bad nights, he would pull it out and run his fingers gently over the soft fur. It was soothing in a way, grounding him to reality when everything else seemed to slip out of his grasp. He could sit and hold his “lucky” rabbit’s foot and think, fingers occupied while his brain was busy.</p><p>So maybe it <em>was</em> lucky, in a way. He always made better decisions when he held the charm in his palm, gently petting it with his thumb. It saw him through con jobs and heists and a few harrowing stays in jail. It kept him cool and level-headed when all the people around him were losing their god-damn minds.</p><p>It’s what kept him out of Rico’s shadier business practices, though for a long moment he thought maybe the rabbit’s foot luck had run out.</p><p>The night Ford’s postcard found it’s way into his motel room, he was contemplating the charm. He owed Rico a hell of a lot of money, had no way of paying it without taking some extremely risky business prospects only offered by Rico. Rico this, Rico that… how the hell had he gotten himself into this fucking situation both caused and solved by some wannabe mafia bastard?</p><p>There’s a knock on the door and he nearly drops the charm as he dives for his baseball bat. It’s only the postman and it’s… its <em>only </em>a postcard from his brother, offering him a way out of this mess. At least for the moment.</p><p>Stan looks at the fuzzy charm clenched in his shaking fist and decides <em>what the hell, might as well give it a shot.</em></p><p>What else does he have to lose?</p><p>Apparently everything.</p><p>That first morning after his twin had… disappeared? Vanished? Got sucked into the howling nightmare beyond his freaky glowing monstrous contraption? Something like that.</p><p>That first morning alone in what would become his home, Stanley Pines stood in front of control panels he didn’t understand and hung his rabbit’s foot from the switch of a bare-bulbed desk lamp.</p><p>Outside he’d have to rely on his own natural charm. But down in the basement… he needed as much luck as he could get.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Sacrifice: Theater</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Stan will always be a theater kid in my heart.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ford pushed the door to his room open with an exhausted sigh, fully intent on falling face-first into his bed and not moving again until Stan got home from rehearsal. He’d stayed late to work on the promising beginnings of his science fair project, but knew that this close to production the theater club usually kept much later hours.</p><p>So he was surprised to find Stan hanging backwards off his bed, hitting his paddle-ball with his usual deadly precision. He barely reacted to Ford’s entrance, a flick of his eyes towards the door the only sign that he’d even noticed. The paddle-ball kept on it’s steady <em>thwacka thawaka thawcka</em>.</p><p>“I thought you’d be at rehearsal,” said Ford with a frown, letting his heavy backpack fall to the floor with a solid <em>thud</em>. “Isn’t the play in less than a month?”</p><p>“Yeah, it is.” The paddle-ball stopped and the old springs of Stan’s mattress creaked as he rolled upright. “I quit.”</p><p>Ford was glad he’d already set down his backpack or he would have dropped it in shock. “What do you mean you quit? I thought you loved theater, Stanley!”</p><p>He had it on good authority Stan loved theater. His twin spent long hours pacing their small room, reading his lines until he could near about recite them backwards, turning all his charm and wit into a thousand-watt actor’s smile visible beyond the spotlights of some imagined stage. When Stan wasn’t in the gym, honing the strength of his boxers arms, he was in the theater, walking club members through staged fights and complicated sequences.</p><p>Stan loved theater, he’d told Ford himself in as many words, and many more actions.</p><p>But now…</p><p>“I just did. It…” Stan trailed off and his face pinched. Was it a trick of the light or was he trying not to cry? “It’s just not for me anymore,” he said, almost as rehearsed as his lines from two days ago, when he’d been so excited about his part. “I have better things to do with my time.”</p><p>Ford found his face pinching in confusion as he stared at his twin. “Better things? Like what? You already spend all your waking hours at the gym or with Carla or…” He stopped as Stan glowered at him, the scowl in his eyes the only thing distracting from his trembling hands.</p><p>“I don’t really need to explain myself. Least of all to you, Poindexter.” He hauled himself off the bed and scooped his boxing wraps off the floor where they’d landed the day before. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got extra training for the match next week.”</p><p>The only thing that saved Ford from a vicious shoulder-check was his backward stumble as his brother’s momentum startled him. He was left staring out the door as Stan clattered down the stairs and out into the backyard where his makeshift training setup stood waiting. Ford could hear him rattling around and swearing, then a long familiar silence as Stan wrapped his hands followed by the steady thumps of cloth-wrapped fists against sand and canvas.</p><p>That’s the end of that. Stan didn’t go to rehearsal anymore. One or two teachers tried to ask him about it and when they didn’t get an answer beyond “not my thing anymore” they turned to Ford. Ford couldn’t tell them anything either, just watched helplessly as his twin threw himself into boxing more than he ever had before.</p><p>If anything, their dad seemed a little happier.</p><p>Of course, that didn’t last either.</p><p>Ford found out the truth too little too late, crammed in the bottom of his own wastebasket as he sullenly packed for Backupsmore.</p><p>Three threats to Ford’s own safety unless Stan could “man up”, torn to pieces.</p><p>Two letters, only ripped in half, but telling none-the-less. A letter of praise from the head of the theater department with an invitation to some big theater camp before college. A letter from the head of the boxing club, insisting that Stan compete in the state tournament or he’d tell Filbrick about how much his prissy son loved theater.</p><p>One well-loved script with a rehearsal schedule scribbled on the front in Stan’s own handwriting. The performance date the same as the tournament.</p><p>Ford might have been angry at his twin, but he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t cry over that worn script, the remnants of a sacrifice he hadn’t even known.</p><p>He’d be even more of a liar if he said he left the script behind.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Crime: The One Crime He Didn't Commit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There was one crime, he never committed. Until he technically did.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This one comes with a warning. It sounds like Ford is dead, but I promise he isn't, Stan's just a dramatic bitch.</p><p>Also a note, at 200 words this is a perfect double drabble!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stan Pines is happy to say he doesn’t have anyone’s blood on his hands.</p><p>Stan has lied and stolen and cheated his way through all 50 states and a few countries too. He’s swindled his way past drug lords and mafia bosses, laughed in the face of danger as he fled with ill-gotten spoils.</p><p>But he’s clean. He doesn’t have anyone’s blood on his hands.</p><p>His hands have shaken as he held a gun in someone’s face and demanded they “pay up, or else.” He’s glad they did. He doesn’t know what he would have done if they didn’t, he doesn’t have it in him to hurt someone beyond the bumps and bruises of the boxing ring.</p><p>Roughing someone up is all in a days work, but being judge, jury, and executioner? Leave that for someone else’s conscience.</p><p>Stan Pines might be a criminal, but he’s no murderer.</p><p>Except... that’s not quite right anymore, is it?</p><p>He can still see his brother’s panicked, screaming face if he closes his eyes just a little too long, a little too tight.</p><p>Stan Pines only has one person’s blood on his hands.</p><p>And no matter how hard he scrubs, the stains never leave.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Future: The Future AMV</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>An AMV set to The Future by Mystery Skulls</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I haven't made an AMV in yeeeears.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that's it for Stanuary! It was a lot of fun!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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